General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsEver Feel Discouraged? Read This:
http://joelrunyon.com/two3/an-unexpected-ass-kicking/The author sat down to work on his laptop in a coffee shop. A very elderly gentleman sat down next to him; turns out, he invented the first internally-programmable computer, and he has some important insights.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Want to mess with your mind? Without the man in the photo, the photo of this man wouldnt exist.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)We have been caught in a brightly colored, loud circus that demands we pay for the privilege to learn someone else's way of thinking. We get so invested in what is being sold to us that we avoid learning to think ourselves.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Agree completely.
just wow. Thank you, that was amazing.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)and went to the bronx high school of science, a publicly-funded specialised math/science school that when he was there took only boys.
i take the point of the article, but this type of article (be all that you can be! dare! aspire!) kind of glides over the support systems that allow people like kirsch to thrive.
i used to take those systems for granted; they are being destroyed.
redqueen
(115,103 posts)Kidding, good points.
Hydra
(14,459 posts)Is that the people in charge are doing their best to make it illegal to do new things and tinker with old things. It's veiled as "protecting intellectual property" and such, but the results are interesting- cooling innovation and creating a climate and mindset of "It's not possible."
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)and similar skills in jr. high & high school? it's not that complicated if you start young, nor is understanding such things.
i think it's basically to keep such knowledge arcane, to restrict it to a narrow slice of the population, to create artificial scarcity, etc.
the new patent/copyright/intellectual property laws are all about that too. huge restriction of the so-called 'free market,' enlarging the rentier class, but they never talk about that during their paeans to capitalism.
yeah, it discourages innovation and dumbs people down. they become stupid consumers of things others make for them, of which they have no understanding.
demosincebirth
(12,543 posts)worse.
chowder66
(9,084 posts)Every time I have thought of something... I find out it has already been done. I keep trying though.
What a great story.
obxhead
(8,434 posts)The paper clip was invented and they made money. It was reinvented and they made even more money.
chowder66
(9,084 posts)TlalocW
(15,392 posts)I'm sorry, folks, but that's my grandpa. He routinely escapes from the home and then goes around telling people stuff. I'm sorry. If you've seen him please call me at...
Just kidding. Cool story.
TlalocW
AsahinaKimi
(20,776 posts)at the table, and knew who he was, I would give him a huge permanent black marker and ask him to sign my LAPTOP.. with the words...
"I made this just for you... love to kimi! ~Russell Kirsch "
Ruby the Liberal
(26,219 posts)northoftheborder
(7,574 posts)UnrepentantLiberal
(11,700 posts)trof
(54,256 posts)I was a newspaper reporter in the early 60s.
We got this new contraption in the newsroom that could send and receive photos anywhere in the world that had a phone line (and a drum scanner).
Wow.
What a brilliant guy.
backscatter712
(26,355 posts)lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)K&R